View source for Al Capp

==The 1940s and 1950s==
[[File:Cappbio46.jpg|right|thumb|300px|Al Capp drew his own autobiography, the 34-page ''Al Capp by Li'l Abner'' (1946), that was distributed to returning World War II amputee veterans.]]
During World War II and for many years afterward, Capp worked tirelessly going to hospitals to entertain patients, especially to cheer recent amputees and explain to them that the loss of a limb did not mean an end to a happy and productive life. Making no secret of his own disability, Capp openly joked about his [[prosthetic]] leg his whole life. In 1946, Capp created a special full-color comic book, ''Al Capp by Li'l Abner'', to be distributed by the [[Red Cross]] to encourage the thousands of amputee veterans returning from the war. Capp also was involved with the [[Elizabeth Kenny|Sister Kenny Foundation]], which pioneered new treatments for [[polio]] in the 1940s. Serving in his capacity as honorary chairman, Capp made public appearances on its behalf for years, contributed free artwork for its annual fundraising appeals, and entertained disabled and [[paraplegic]] children in children's hospitals with inspirational pep talks, humorous stories, and sketches.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/05/dont-keep-remembering-what-youve-lost.html|title=Letters of Note: Dear Chip... (Columbus Hospital, 28 May 1964)|access-date=October 29, 2020|archive-date=October 15, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181015153014/http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/05/dont-keep-remembering-what-youve-lost.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In 1940, an [[RKO Pictures|RKO]] [[Li'l Abner (1940 film)|movie adaptation]] starred Granville Owen (later known as [[Jeff York]]) as Li'l Abner, with [[Buster Keaton]] taking the role of Lonesome Polecat, and featuring a title song with lyrics by [[Milton Berle]]. A successful musical comedy adaptation of the strip opened on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] at the St. James Theater on November 15, 1956, and had a long run of 693 performances, followed by a nationwide tour. The [[Li'l Abner (musical)|stage musical]], with music and lyrics by [[Gene de Paul]] and [[Johnny Mercer]], was adapted into a [[Technicolor]] [[Li'l Abner (1959 film)|motion picture]] at [[Paramount Pictures|Paramount]] in 1959 by producer [[Norman Panama]] and director [[Melvin Frank]], with a score by [[Nelson Riddle]]. Several performers repeated their Broadway roles in the film, most memorably [[Julie Newmar]] as Stupefyin' Jones and [[Stubby Kaye]] as Marryin' Sam.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1959/12/12/archives/the-screen-lil-abner.html|title=The Screen: 'Li'l Abner' (Published 1959)|first=Bosley|last=Crowther|newspaper=The New York Times|date=December 12, 1959|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref>

Other highlights of that decade included the 1942 debut of Fearless Fosdick as Abner's "ideel" (hero); the 1946 Lena the Hyena Contest, in which a hideous Lower Slobbovian gal was ultimately revealed in the harrowing winning entry (as judged by Frank Sinatra, [[Boris Karloff]], and [[Salvador Dalí]]) drawn by noted cartoonist [[Basil Wolverton]]; and an ill-fated Sunday parody of ''[[Gone with the Wind (novel)|Gone With the Wind]]'' that aroused anger and legal threats from author [[Margaret Mitchell]], and led to a printed apology within the strip. In October 1947, Li'l Abner met Rockwell P. Squeezeblood, head of the abusive and corrupt Squeezeblood Comic Strip Syndicate. The resulting sequence, "Jack Jawbreaker Fights Crime!", was a devastating satire of [[Jerry Siegel]] and [[Joe Shuster]]'s notorious exploitation by [[DC Comics]] over ''[[Superman]]''. It was later reprinted in ''The World of Li'l Abner'' (1953). (Siegel and Shuster had earlier poked fun at Capp in a ''Superman'' story in ''[[Action Comics]] #55'', December 1942, in which a cartoonist named "Al Hatt" invents a comic strip featuring the hillbilly "Tiny Rufe".)

In 1947, Capp earned a ''[[Newsweek]]'' cover story. That same year the ''[[New Yorker magazine|New Yorker's]]'' profile on him was so long that it ran in consecutive issues. In 1948, Capp reached a creative peak with the introduction of the [[Shmoo]]s, lovable and innocent fantasy creatures who reproduced at amazing speed and brought so many benefits that, ironically, the world economy was endangered. The much-copied storyline was a [[parable]] that was [[metaphor]]ically interpreted in many different ways at the outset of the [[Cold War]].

Following his close friend Milton Caniff's lead (with ''[[Steve Canyon]]''), Capp had recently fought a successful battle with the syndicate to gain complete ownership of his feature when the Shmoos debuted. As a result, he reaped enormous financial rewards from the unexpected (and almost unprecedented) merchandising phenomenon that followed. As in the strip, Shmoos suddenly appeared to be everywhere in 1949 and 1950—including a ''Time'' cover story. A paperback collection of the original sequence, ''The Life and Times of the Shmoo'', became a bestseller for [[Simon & Schuster]]. Shmoo dolls, clocks, watches, jewelry, earmuffs, wallpaper, fishing lures, air fresheners, soap, ice cream, balloons, ashtrays, comic books, records, sheet music, toys, games, [[Halloween]] masks, salt and pepper shakers, decals, pinbacks, tumblers, coin banks, greeting cards, planters, neckties, suspenders, belts, curtains, fountain pens, and other Shmoo paraphernalia were produced. A garment factory in [[Baltimore]] turned out a whole line of Shmoo apparel, including "Shmooveralls". The original sequence and its 1959 sequel ''The Return of the Shmoo'' have been collected in print many times since, most recently in 2011, always to high sales figures. The Shmoos later had their own animated television series.

Capp followed this success with other [[allegory|allegorical]] fantasy critters, including the aboriginal and [[Self-defeating personality disorder|masochistic]] "Kigmies", who craved abuse (a story that began as a veiled comment on racial and religious oppression), the dreaded "Nogoodniks" (or ''bad'' shmoos), and the irresistible "Bald Iggle", a guileless creature whose sad-eyed countenance compelled involuntary truthfulness—with predictably disastrous results.

''Li'l Abner'' was [[censorship|censored]] for the first time, but not the last, in September 1947 and was pulled from papers by [[Scripps-Howard]]. The controversy, as reported in ''Time'', centered on Capp's portrayal of the [[United States Senate]]. Edward Leech of Scripps said, "We don't think it is good editing or sound citizenship to picture the Senate as an assemblage of freaks and crooks&nbsp;... boobs and undesirables."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804275,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023081224/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,804275,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 23, 2007|title=Tain't Funny – TIME|access-date=October 29, 2020}}</ref> Capp criticized [[Senator Joseph McCarthy]] in 1954, calling him a "poet". "He uses [[poetic license]] to try to create the beautifully ordered world of good guys and bad guys that he wants," said Capp. "He seems at his best when terrifying the helpless and naïve."<ref>"Poet: Cartoonist Al Capp said in New York{{nbsp}}..." quoted in ''The Argus'', May 10, 1954</ref>

Capp received the [[National Cartoonists Society]]'s [[National Cartoonists Society#Billy DeBeck Memorial Award|Billy DeBeck Memorial Award]] in 1947 for Cartoonist of the Year. (When the award name was changed in 1954, Capp also retroactively received a [[National Cartoonists Society#Reuben Award|Reuben]] statuette.) He was an outspoken pioneer in favor of diversifying the NCS by admitting women cartoonists. Originally, the Society had disallowed female members. Capp briefly resigned his membership in 1949 to protest their refusal of admission to [[Hilda Terry]], creator of the comic strip ''[[Teena (comic strip)|Teena]]''. According to Tom Roberts, author of ''[[Alex Raymond]]: His Life and Art'' (2007), Capp delivered a stirring speech that was instrumental in changing those rules. The NCS finally accepted female members the following year. In December 1952, Capp published an article in ''Real'' magazine entitled "The REAL Powers in America" that further challenged the conventional attitudes of the day: "The real powers in America are ''women''—the wives and sweethearts behind the masculine dummies...."

Highlights of the 1950s included the much-heralded marriage of Abner and Daisy Mae in 1952, the birth of their son "Honest Abe" Yokum in 1953, and in 1954 the introduction of Abner's enormous, long-lost kid brother Tiny Yokum, who filled Abner's place as a bachelor in the annual Sadie Hawkins Day race. In 1952, Capp and his characters graced the covers of both ''Life'' and ''[[TV Guide]]''. The year 1956 saw the debut of Bald Iggle, considered by some ''Abner'' enthusiasts to be the creative high point of the strip, as well as Mammy's revelatory encounter with the "Square Eyes" Family—Capp's thinly veiled appeal for racial tolerance. (This [[fable]]-like story was collected into an educational comic book called ''Mammy Yokum and the Great Dogpatch Mystery!'' and distributed by the [[Anti-Defamation League]] of [[B'nai B'rith]] later that year.) Two years later, Capp's studio issued ''[[Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story]]'', a biographical comic book distributed by the [[Fellowship of Reconciliation]].<ref name=Grio>Love, David A. [http://thegrio.com/2011/02/02/eygptians-draw-inspiration-from-civil-rights-movement-comic-book/ "Egyptians draw inspiration from Civil Rights Movement comic book."] ''[[The Grio]]'' (February 2, 2011).</ref><ref>[http://comicon.com/pulse/index.php/2010/03/07/al-capps-martin-luther-king-comic/ "Al Capp's Martin Luther King Comic,"] Comicon.com's ''The Pulse'' (March 7, 2010). {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322210437/http://comicon.com/pulse/index.php/2010/03/07/al-capps-martin-luther-king-comic/ |date=March 22, 2012}}</ref>

Often, Capp had parodied corporate greed—pork tycoon J. Roaringham Fatback had figured prominently in wiping out the Shmoos. But in 1952, when [[General Motors]] president [[Charles Erwin Wilson|Charles E. Wilson]], nominated for a cabinet post, told [[United States Congress|Congress]] "...what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa", he inspired one of Capp's greatest satires—the introduction of General Bullmoose, the robust, ruthless, and ageless business tycoon. The blustering Bullmoose, who seemed to own and control nearly everything, justified his far-reaching and mercenary excesses by saying "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for ''the USA!''" Bullmoose's corrupt interests were often pitted against those of the pathetic Lower Slobbovians in a classic mismatch of "haves" versus "have-nots". This character, along with the Shmoos, helped cement Capp's favor with the [[Left-wing politics|Left]], and increased their outrage a decade later when Capp, a former [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] liberal, switched targets. Nonetheless, General Bullmoose continued to appear, undaunted and unredeemed, during the strip's final right-wing phase and into the 1970s.